March 4, 2003
University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) Library, President’s Room
Members in Attendance:
Tom Beck
Marjorie Chenoweth
Emily Connell
Kathy Cowan
Regina Koehler
Jean McEvoy
Karen O’Connell
Florence Thorp
Linda Tompkins-Baldwin
Bill Wilson
Marjorie Chenoweth called the meeting to order.
1. Winners of the Travel and Diversity awards
The winners of the Travel and Diversity awards were announced. They are Heather Ball of Virginia Tech (Travel) and Maria Sampang of Catholic University (Diversity).
2. Tour of UMBC Library Special Collections and Exhibit
UMBC Libraries and Tom Beck hosted a chapter meeting where members toured special collections and an exhibit on self-taught French graphic designer Robert Massin entitled: Massin in Continuo: A Dictionary.
3. Introductions
Members in attendance introduced themselves.
4. Meetings of the Chapter
Marjorie asked members in attendance where should the chapter go in the next year? Meaning what focus should the chapter take? In the past, the local chapter has been active socially, meeting once a month. Presently, the chapter meets less frequently, 2-4 times a year.
Linda Tompkins-Baldwin commented that she enjoys the all day meetings with professional and cultural activities. Other members agreed.
The chapter discussed locations for future meetings including: Annapolis, the Maryland Archives, Richmond, Alexandria, Leesburg (the National Sporting Art Library), and Norfolk (the Chrysler Museum). The Fall meeting will be held at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The chapter would like to have a professional topic presented at the meeting.
5. Promoting Diversity
The chapter would like to find ways to promote diversity in the local chapter. It was suggested the chapter should involve the library students at the University of Maryland, College Park.
6. Baltimore Conference
The chapter will not sell Baltimore themed T-shirts at the conference. The chapter did not receive enough presale response.Instead, the chapter will sell note cards with the Baltimore ARLIS conference logo on them. Proceeds will go to the national conference as the local chapter’s contribution. There will be no out of pocket costs to the local chapter.
Conference planners will open ticket sales to movie night, the workshops, tours, and the Camille Paglia closing plenary to the public. Some workshops and tours did not meet the minimum attendance needed to break even. Planners will cancel the all day tours of Alexandria and Annapolis. The best selling event is the Fells Point walking ghost tour.
The exhibitor space is sold out.
There were approximately 470 registrants as of March 5, 2003. Members speculated that attendance was down because of: 9-11/Washington proximity, tight budgets, many attend only every-other year, 2004 in New York.
There may still be needs for Volunteers, especially at the information desk. Kathy Cowan asks that Baltimore restaurant recommendations be sent to Anita Carrico.
7. Membership Renewal
Regina Koehler will send out email reminders for membership renewal. Members in attendance suggested having the local chapter renewal form available at the Information desk in Baltimore.
8. Newsletter
Don Juedes apologizes for the lack of a fall newsletter, he hope to have a spring issue. Karen O’Connell suggested that Don write a piece for ARLIS Update. Marjorie will inquire with Don about hosting a local chapter listserve and about distributing the newsletter electronically.
9. Chapter E-mail List
Karen will send Marjorie the chapter email list.
10. Future Meetings
Marjorie will put out to the chapter the idea of a summer, possibly July, meeting in Virginia. As a topic for discussion Marjorie suggested the challenges of running both a library and archives. It was noted that the Monticello meeting in July 2002 was well attended. There was discussion of hosting a mini-conference weekend on the library and archives topic, possibly a joint effort with VRA and MARAC.
The members in attendance discussed a pattern of a 3-fold conference featuring a professional, a business, and a cultural (tours) component. Members voiced concern about multi-day conferences being taxing on time. Others suggested 3 meetings per year each focusing on one of the previously mentioned components. Marjorie again suggested opening the discussion to the whole chapter.
Jean McEvoy suggested digital reference as a possible topic for a future meeting. Bill Wilson mentioned to Marjorie that Maryland recently released a state issue report on digital reform. Bill will send Marjorie a copy of the report.
The sessions at the upcoming national conference may generate additional topics for future local chapter meetings.
Minutes submitted by Regina Koehler Secretary / Treasurer on April 1, 2003.